By Chris Williams: Trainer Freddie Roach is once again blaming Manny Pacquiao’s poor performance against Juan Manuel Marquez in their third fight on Pacquiao having some personal problems that got in the way of his focus for the fight. Roach says that Pacquiao isn’t having those same problems for his fourth fight against Marquez on December 8th.

Roach told the Boxing Channel at fighthubtv.com “His [Pacquiao] focus is a lot better. I think Marquez is going to have a lot of problems with this Manny Pacquiao…We had some personal problems. [last time]”

Personal problems? Was it personal problems that caused Pacquiao to struggle in his first two fights with Marquez in 2004 and 2008? Was it personal problems that caused Pacquiao to lose his last fight to Tim Bradley? You can only use the old personal problems excuse so many times before boxing fans stop believing it, and instead start seeing it as Roach just reaching for any excuse he can to try explain away the poor effort from Pacquiao.

It really wasn’t so much about Pacquiao looking bad in the last fight, but rather a case of Marquez simply being too good. No matter what Pacquiao tried in that fight, Marquez was able to counter him and shut his offense down. Marquez landed the cleaner punches all night long and I felt he should have been given the victory. I scored the fight 8 rounds to 4. It wasn’t close in my view. Marquez dominated the action and should have been given the win.

If Pacquiao has another bad performance against Marquez on December 8th, I wonder if Roach is going to come up with the personal problems excuse for the fight? It’s just hard to believe that Pacquiao has personal problems that get in the way of his ability to fight at a high level because that’s a weak excuse to use.